The imitable wonk runs down the nominees. And finds them a little boring.

The Alternative Oscar Ballot: Ezra Klein

The Alternative Oscar Ballot: Ezra Klein

Ezra Klein might be one of the smartest people to fill out an Oscar pool ballot in 2012, but he wants you to know that doesn't make him qualified. "My taste in movies is horrible," says the Washington Post columnist and blogger, who writes about politics and economics. "Schlocky action and romantic comedies." (A couple of his favorites last year: X-Men: First Class and Bridesmaids.) So it's not surprising that the Oscars generally run counter to his interests. "I saw every comic-book movie released, but like, The Descendants? No way." As such, he won't be building any models to predict the Academy Awards' outcome anytime soon. But it turns out Klein does have opinions, so we pushed him to weigh in on some of this year's choices — and add one of his own.—Paul Schrodt

Best Picture

Best Picture

"I have seen exactly two of these movies — Moneyball and Midnight in Paris — and didn't think either deserved the Oscar. So I'm voting for Wall-E, which I thought should have won it a few years back. That's my main, overarching frustration with the Oscars. They discriminate against robots.

"I just thought Wall-E was an incredibly ingenious, epic feat of filmmaking. Frankly, the leap to have a movie with almost no humans and no speaking for that long was a tremendous achievement in the way that the other movies that year, good though they may have been, were not sort of game-changing.

"I loved the book Moneyball. I enjoyed the movie — it was fine. I thought Midnight in Paris was clever, although a little thin. They just didn't strike me as Best Picture quality. They were no Wall-E. Tree of Life — nobody was ever able to explain to me what it was about. The Descendants honestly just looked like quite a bummer. I'm not a huge fan of bummer movies.

"The Best Picture nominees this year do not seem to be particularly crowd-pleasing. To my knowledge, people didn't seem to really like War Horse that much. And why the hell do I want to go see a movie about a horse?"